45 hours of rushes and
30 hours of stereo sound
Sophisticated technology transported by three four-wheel drives loaded with equipment, two 35mm cameras, projector prototypes, a soundproof power generator and…
more than two years in Eastern Africa.
THEATRICAL RELEASE APRIL 1977
The true nature of animals
Fang and Claw is the first 35mm feature film made in stereo sound
to feature nighttime images of wild animals.
‘As filming progressed, we began to see our film as a kind of meditation. We wanted to rediscover primitive nature, and show all kinds of species seemingly coexisting in a sort of peaceful indifference…
…as well as the nocturnal behaviour of large predators who use ‘fang and claw’ as survival weapons.’
‘The reality of these animals’ lives is extraordinary enough in and of itself – there is no need to romanticise it.’
‘Our film is not narrated. We had nothing to prove, and, wanting only to show, we left all the talking to the animals, whose calls and song then became the film’s music.
Why insert a human voice or thought into a place devoid of humans?’
‘We just wanted to depict reality with absolute honesty. Just the animals and the truth. In the wild, life and violence are inextricably linked. Freedom and justice, as we understand them, do not exist here. Often, it is simply about the survival of the fittest. What we interpret as cruelty in an animal is nothing but hunger, the unavoidable fight for survival.’
Images from the film / 50”
Wildlife, just the way it is
‘Some might hold the violence of certain scenes against us – but in the world that we entered, life and violence are intertwined, and we decided to neither downplay nor exaggerate that.’
‘This is not a film about animals, but with animals. The images show them exactly as they are in the wild, in their natural biological environment.’
‘We did this in order to give the film another dimension: we wanted it to read like an opera, with the drama unfolding in the spaces between heaven and earth, day and night, life and death.’
François Bel and Gérard Vienne
Video excerpt 23”
François Bel Interview - 1998 / About Fang and Claw
